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Janet Yellen Interview Part I

By: Jim Mosquera | Tuesday, March 18, 2014

In the documentary, Money
for Nothing: Inside the Federal Reserve, current Fed chair, Janet Yellen
gave rather candid answers to questions the American public has about how
the Fed works and actions they took since the financial crisis. I will highlight
some of the questions, capture her response, and provide commentary.

Question: Was the Federal Reserve justified in bailing out the entire financial
system in 08-09?

This is why the Fed was set up in 1913. It is to provide liquidity to the
financial system as a whole at a time when you have a financial panic. Liquidity
dries up in the market and prices can just go into free-fall ultimately bankrupting
not only the entities associated with the start of the trouble but anyone who
has any connection to them.

Comment: Whatever your feelings on whether the Fed should have been
created in the first place, it is true that their stated goal was to provide
liquidity in the financial system. Certainly prices can go into free-fall.
The issue really is WHAT prices would have gone into free-fall and who would
have been affected by their fall. David Stockman did a nice job of debunking
the theory that the entire credit system would seize up in the, albeit difficult
read, The
Great Deformation. No doubt Wall St. and the large investment banks would
have taken a beating (see Lehman Brothers and Bear Stearns) though I think
it is much more debatable if small to mid-sized banks would have been affected
in the same way.

Question: Does the Fed favor Wall Street over Main Street?

Our commitment is to the well-being of America's households. I know it looks
like we are very focused on the financial system. That should never be mistaken
as a focus on Wall St. as opposed to Main St. We may make mistakes and we face
complex challenges. As we have gone through this crisis, the Fed has had to
intervene in ways that are dramatic. People have been angry that resources
have been channeled towards institutions that were the cause of the financial
panic. Those of us inside the Fed have the same anger. Our focus is on creating
jobs and price stability.

Comment: I appreciated her candor about the mistakes they made given
their complex challenges. I might suggest that some of those challenges are
self-inflicted since their original charter was not to create jobs and stabilize
prices. If one argues that the Fed should be there to provide liquidity, that
is one thing. To say they need to create jobs and stabilize prices is another.
Another point...providing liquidity was originally defined as giving banks
cash required in the event of a systemic bank run. Bank runs were not a problem
in 2008 but rather the price collapse of derived financial products
traded by large investment banks. This is problem #1 with the Fed. They have
expanded their mission and have been anointed Wizards by
government and the financial system.

The stimulus that the Fed applied to the economy in 03-05 was intended to
reduce high unemployment, idle capital and idle resources. When interest rates
go down, of course, spending that is sensitive to interest rates rises and
housing is highly interest rate sensitive. No surprise this gave rise to a
boom in housing. The Fed was not behaving in a way that was irresponsible.
We did end up with financial excesses.

Comment: Interesting that her predecessor, Bernanke, did not see the
housing bubble at all. Yellen also commented that despite the fact that she
acknowledged that a boom in housing would emerge, she could not conclude this
would lead to a bubble. A couple of points I will make. First, and once again,
it is not the Fed's job to reduce unemployment. Secondly, if she concludes
accurately that they were going to create a housing boom, how does she distance
that conclusion from a bubble? In my book,
I outlined the steps needed for a bubble creation and one was "The means to
speculate with credit." Lower Fed interest rates = means to speculate.

Question: Can the U.S. grow its economy without creating bubbles?

We have a problem transitioning to an economy that seems like it's operating
on a sound basis in all sectors of the economy without having dangerous overhangs
of debt. Households probably need to save more. Consumer spending should be
a smaller share of GDP. The government also has a lot of debt. If we go another
decade, 20 years without dealing with it [government debt], that's going to
be a crisis. What's going to get us to full employment? Investment can't fill
up that whole gap. The only answer I can see is our net exports to the rest
of the world. I think the rest of the world, and particularly Asia, needs to
focus more on consumer spending.

Comment: Certainly households should save more. They did for the early
part of the recession but now the trend has reversed. She indicates that consumer
spending should not be counted on to revive the economy yet that is precisely
what low interest rate policies are trying to coax. She suggests that government
debt is not a problem right now. Of course when her own Fed is buying $85 billion
of Treasuries per month, I guess that masks the crisis. If they were not making
these purchases, longer term interest rates would be higher and would encourage
the very savings she suggests households need. Encouraging others countries
to spend and buy our goods and services is a logical approach except that the
Euro zone is having their own problems and China is one massive bubble.